210
“Give Khan back! Give me back my child!”
Scrawny fists rained blindly over his jaw, chest, and shoulders.
His face twisted as he looked down at the woman wailing in agony, and he seized both her wrists in an iron grip.
“Get a hold of yourself! That wasn’t our child. It was only a beast!”
“No! No! Khan is my child! You killed him! You tore him away from me twice!”
She fought on, thrashing with desperate, wild strength.
The sight of her—looking as though her mind had shattered entirely—made his blood run hot.
Cupping her cheeks firmly with both hands, he brought his face close to hers, which was contorted with tears.
“Our child is dead. He died long ago and lies buried in the cemetery.”
“Shut up! Shut up! I told you to shut up!”
She shrieked, clawing wildly at the backs of his hands. Her blood-caked fingernails bit deep into his flesh.
Subduing her as she writhed violently, almost as if seized by a convulsion, he looked straight into her crazed eyes.
“Stop this and face reality. That wolf was nothing more than a beast tamed by human hands.”
Beyond the blue eyes swimming with tears, a dagger of hatred flickered, scraping ruthlessly against the very core of him.
Varkas did not stop; his voice grew harsher still.
“No, it was never even properly tamed. You knew it was dangerous all along. You chose to look away, and now you are merely paying the price.”
Dark red blood welled where her nails dug into the backs of his hands and trickled down.
Her pale lips trembled, crusty with dried blood, before she spat out a single word like a curse.
“Die.”
Between ragged, drowning breaths, a voice like molten iron forced its way past her lips.
“I wish you would just die.”
At that moment, the fierce heat coursing through his veins drained away like dry sand.
As if pushing back against the sudden chill, his reply came hollow and flat.
“Then find a stronger poison next time. I’ll gladly drink it for you.”
Those words seemed to strip away whatever fight she had left.
Her shoulders, drawn tight as an overstretched bowstring, slumped down. Her eyes, which had poured forth such endless weeping, dried to a hollow stare in an instant.
Looking up at him with a face as pale as a ghost’s, she murmured in a voice that sounded ready to crumble into dust.
“Khan isn’t the monster. You are.”
· · ·
“You’re a horrible monster without feelings. I… I should never have married you.”
Varkas stood frozen for a long beat before a bleak, self-mocking smile crept onto his mouth.
“Regret always comes too late, no matter how early it arrives.”
She looked at him as if he were the vile creature she had named, then closed her eyes, utterly spent. It seemed as though pushing her a fraction further would make her faint on the spot.
Giving up on forcing any food into her, he walked over to the hearth. As he stirred the dying embers with a poker, the bloody gashes on the backs of his hands caught his eye.
He took a cloth from the shelf and wiped away the blood. A wave of unbearable weariness washed over him, and he sank into an armchair, his vision blurring as if coated in frost.
Clutching his throbbing brow, he looked back toward the bed. He saw only the sheets, rumpled and torn from their struggle, and the woman sprawled across them like a broken doll.
For some reason, the air in the room felt suffocating.
He dragged a rough hand down his face and sank deep into the chair.
The days that followed were like war.
Getting half a bowl of porridge into her took three or four hours of vicious struggle.
Even when he managed to make her swallow, she threw up more than half of it, and whatever meager nourishment she kept seemed swallowed whole by the fury of her resistance.
Watching her waste away day by day, Varkas came to know with chilling clarity what it meant to watch someone’s life bleed dry.
She had caused trouble before by refusing her meals, but she had never fought back with such desperate fury.
She seemed entirely bent on starving herself to death. Restraining her with both arms as she thrust two fingers down her throat to heave up the oat porridge he had spent two grueling hours feeding her, Varkas yelled toward the maids hovering at a distance, his expression taut with dismay.
“Burn the sedative! Now!”
The women near the door rushed over, tossed dried herbs onto the brazier, and set them alight.
Even then, she thrashed convulsively, fighting to break free of his grip.
“Let go! Let go of me!”
Bracing himself against the headboard, he wrapped the bedsheets around her, pinning her so tightly she could not move.
Before long, she went limp as wet reeds. Weakened to the absolute limit, her body could not withstand even a trace of the fumes.
He smoothed the damp, tangled hair back from her nape as her head lolled against his chest, her limbs dangling loose.
Her face, streaked with sweat and tears, looked up at him in bitter resentment.
“Please… stop this. Just let me be.”
Ignoring her tearful plea, he wiped her face clean with a warm, damp towel.
Gazing up at him as if at something utterly repulsive, she soon drifted into unconsciousness under the herb’s influence.
He laid her gently across the bed, cushioned among the thick pillows, and rose. Stripping off his torn shirt and pulling out a fresh one, he felt hesitant eyes upon him.
He looked back at the hovering maids.
“What is it?”
“Uh… My Lord, we wondered if… if your own wounds shouldn’t be tended to as well…”
The maid’s voice dwindled away as her cheeks flushed.
He looked down at the red scratches scoring his forearms. During the first few days, her nails had dug deep, but now they left only thin, faint marks.
Even the strength in her hands was draining away by the day. Varkas stared down at them with sunken eyes and buttoned his cuffs, entirely indifferent.
“There is no need.”
“B-but…”
“More importantly, where has the Grand Duchess’s wet nurse been assigned?”
Startled by the abrupt turn, the maid stiffened and looked up at him.
“B-Bremda is at the textile workshop in the outer castle. After she committed that great insolence toward Your Grace a few years ago, she was stripped of her duties as an attendant…”
The maid spoke hesitantly, seeming fearful that he might bring the woman back into the Grand Duchess’s service.
He draped a black tunka over his thin linen shirt and gestured toward the door.
“Bring her to the lower floor of the annex.”
The maid hesitated a moment before turning and hurrying outside.
He summoned another maid, instructed her to watch over the Grand Duchess’s bedside, and walked out of the dim bedroom.
Descending the stairs, he took in the entrance to the maids’ quarters, a modest kitchen, and a neatly appointed sitting room.
Stepping into the parlor where a fire burned, he slumped into a velvet armchair.
A maid who had followed him downstairs poured a goblet of wine and set it on the side table.
Just as he lifted the cup to wet his parched throat, a dark-skinned dwarf-blooded woman entered the annex under a soldier’s escort.
He looked over the face he had known all too well since childhood. Her life could not have been particularly hard; she had grown heavier since he last saw her.
“I… I offer my greetings, Your Grace.”
Brought before him, the woman muttered with an uneasy look.
Varkas remained silent for a long stretch. The woman, shifting her beady eyes to read his expression, spoke cautiously.
“Why have you… summoned me, Your Grace?”
“She has refused all food for over half a month.”
He spoke at last.
Her eyes widened in surprise, but her shoulders quickly slumped.
“It seems that wicked habit of hers has flared up again.”
She shook her head with a weary sigh, as though none of this were new.
“Ever since she was small, she’d stop eating the moment she was crossed, making everyone run in circles… Goodness, when will she ever grow up…?”
She clicked her tongue. Even upon hearing that the girl she had raised from infancy had gone fifteen days without food, there was little genuine concern in her face.
He fixed her with an icy stare.
“Watch your tongue. Do you still think of her as a child clinging to your apron strings?”
She flinched, shrinking her round shoulders.
Pressing his stinging eyes, heavy from days without sleep, he came to the point.
“Prepare food she might actually stomach.”
“Y-Your Grace knows full well. When the young lady—er, the Grand Duchess clamps her mouth shut, no amount of pleading from anyone will do. It won’t matter what I prepare…”
“She still ate your food better than anyone else’s. I will provide whatever provisions you need. Cook what she used to like and bring it here.”
The woman held her tongue, offering no answer. Varkas’s gaze turned lethal at her reluctance to obey.
“Did you not hear me?”
“I—I heard you, Your Grace. I heard clearly.”
She stammered with a terrified expression, though reluctance remained plainly written across her features.
Shifting her gaze anxiously, she ventured with hesitation.
“I… I will obey Your Grace’s command, but… please, grant me one request.”
He let out a dry scoff.
“Do you believe you are in any position to bargain with me?”
“I-I do not belong to the Grand Duchy! I am only here by the order of Her Majesty the Empress to care for the Grand Duchess!”
He leaned forward from the back of the armchair, giving a faint nod for her to continue.
Cringing at his movement, the woman squeezed her eyes shut and blurted out her words in a breathless rush.
“Yet the Grand Duchess cast me aside, claiming she had no use for me, and left me to do menial chores among the lowliest servants! I cannot bear such treatment any longer. Once the Grand Duchess recovers, I beg of you to send me back to the Empress’s Palace!”
END